Based on an analysis of the evolution of the software market, up to the creation of free software, the purpose of this article was to review some of the interpretations in the literature about production of free software in the contemporary economy. By establishing a connection between the software market differentiation and the categories that orient free software production agents, it was possible to identify that most of the academic interpretations incorporate those categories into their analysis and, by doing so, end up assuming a position in favour of the thematic that does not question the particularity of the agents' own point of views.